metapsychology

thumb|right|260px|Freud's soul model, referring to his rider-horse parable: the human head symbolises the ego, the animal the id. Similarly, the dynamics of the libido (drive energy) branches out from the id into two main areas: the mental urge to know and the bodily urge to act. Both are bundled into action by the ego with the aim of satisfying the id's basic needs. This includes perception and judgement of the external reality and leads to experiences that the superego internalises via neuronal imprinting. Moral education gives the superego its function as our 'conscience'; generally speaking, it contains the experience of socialisation. The borders between un- and (full) consciousness aren't sharp: "where id was, ego shall become."

Metapsychology (from meta- 'beyond, transcending' and psychology) is that aspect of a psychoanalytic theory that discusses the terms that are essential to it, but leaves aside or transcends the phenomena that the theory deals with. Psychology refers to the concrete conditions of the human psyche, metapsychology to psychology itself (cf. the comparison of metaphysics and physics).